Preparing lawyers for a high-tech information age

In a climate of disruption, new technology and rapid change, law graduates today must use this technology to improve the provision of legal services and to provide new services in new ways to new groups in society. Tomorrow's graduates must increasingly create their own positions. In a world of innovation, lawyers, law firms and legal educators must themselves be innovative.

Even in cases where law graduates go to work in a firm or government department, these young lawyers are expected to be technologically proficient as well as to know the law. Communication skills and business literacy are also at a premium.

If a student does not understand the business or other contexts within which they operate, then their usefulness will be severely limited. Technology developments such as the Internet of Things, Facebook, WeChat and other new business models are impacting every subject in the law curriculum as well as creating the need for new subjects dealing with new technologies such as robotics, nanotechnology and gene technology.

Law Schools must do more to address these needs. Some schools remain in denial and continue to focus on what they have always done -- teaching students to think like a lawyer and learn theory, but with little attention on skills.

The best will "future-proof" their students by introducing more "skills" courses into the curriculum. Some faculties will go further and map essential skills across the whole curriculum with faculty and admin support working together as a team to minimize gaps and ensure adequate coverage and evidenced-based student learning outcomes covering such areas as technology literacy, communication, interviewing, factual investigation and other skills.

In many law schools, technology today remains the province of specialized courses such as Cyber Law or Internet Law. For example a week ago, the students in my Cyber Law class gave presentations on legal issues involving such topics as: 3D printing, nanotechnology, online dispute resolution, cyber insurance, blockchain technology, drones, big data, privacy, security, social media, self-driving cars, use of robots, artificial intelligence, gene technology, open source software, new business models such as Uber and the growing importance of "code" as a regulator of human activity.

Some law schools are also deploying experiential learning and technology tools, including the deployment of virtual reality, to achieve the aim of preparing their lawyers for the realities of legal practice.

Virtual reality has great potential to transform training and education for all professions and can be used to create client interview situations, courtroom contexts and other scenarios through which students can receive feedback to map their learning and improvement.

Legal clinics are growing in popularity, including among Chinese law schools. These clinics and other experiential learning situations bring students into contact with entrepreneurs, start-up businesses and social entrepreneurship such as innovative government programs seeking to improve services to the public.

The fundamental lessons underlying all of these developments are:

1. Technology literacy is required today for all professionals. It is not something that can just be left to the IT team. Peter Drucker was correct that in our increasingly convergent professional world, we are all knowledge workers and involved in creating knowledge products and delivering knowledge services.

2. Relevant skills, such as communication, collaboration, networking, and data analytics, should also be part of professional degrees.

3. Greater use of technology should be made to enhance the quality and effectiveness of education, for example virtual reality.

4. Theory and practice must come together through such practices as experiential learning.

5. Ongoing curriculum reform is required to map these skills across the curriculum so that students may achieve the best possible learning outcomes.

6. Faculty are required who have the values, skills and commitment required to achieve these goals. For many existing faculty, this will require a greater willingness to look forward, embrace and adapt to these changes in society.

7. Existing facilities must be adapted and new ones designed for a different type of teaching that enables students to become technologically proficient and more actively engaged. Also, facilities must have the technological and other resources required for constant innovation.

8. Law schools and their universities must be willing and able to partner with the legal profession and other stakeholders who will employ and be the consumer of services provided by legal professionals in the 21st century. Both law schools and law firms must place a higher priority on innovation.

9. Students must be encouraged to be job creators as well as job takers. They need to be conscious of building their own brand. They must be prepared for an information environment where change will be a constant, organizations will be flatter, and where they must continue to learn and innovate or die.

Conclusion

Robert Pirsig wrote in his best-selling work, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values that "The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquillity it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed."

Legal education must play its part in educating the next generation of lawyers who are able to work across disciplines and exercise the judgement and wisdom required to ensure that 21st century technology is used to create the tranquillity and calmness that comes from a life well spent and a world made better for it.

Eugene Clark is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/eugeneclark.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.